Today I am going to present to you a fruit straight from a rock concert, A rocking fruit.
You guessed it right, it is the Drumstick, the fruit of the super tree Moringa. Moringa is the latest kid on the superfood block, in fact it has taken center stage.
Moringa leaves are known to have
1)High amount of Vitamin C, much more than oranges
2) High amount of Vitamin A, much more than carrots
3) High amounts of Iron, much more than Spinach.
4) High amounts of calcium much more than milk.
So everybody is now queuing for the Moringa, or as we call in Marathi shevaga.
But sadly what happens is that because of our craze to own this superfood, we are taking out the foliage of Moringa plant and not letting these wonder fruits grow.But the truth is as much as the leaves of a Moringa plant are healthy, since they can help beat Diabetes, they help with constipation, they are great to fight cancer, they are great for lactation and mind you every Indian mom, feeds Moringa leaves to her daughter during confinement,it is an essential part of the lactating mother’s food in India.So too ,equally good is the drumstick or Moringa fruit, in fact it is the most yummilious part, of a Moringa plant.
This fruit is a wonder fruit, you see normally vitamin C is destroyed while cooking, but the shell or the covering of a Moringa fruit protects the Vitamin C even during cooking, so when you eat Moringa fruit you get tons of Vitamin C.The Moringa seeds inside the fruit, have very good oil, which is beneficial for hair and skin, and it is the key to longevity or looking young. Moringa fruit is full of calcium,and therefore one of the best remedies for people suffering from Osteo Arthritis and Rhematoid Arthritis.
You can add Moringa fruit to your soups, you can add it to your dhal, you can add it to your curries, you can add it to your sambar. Growing up my mom would add it to her fish curry, I just loved it, then I was non-vegetarian, today I am a Vegetarian, so today morning I cooked a dhal, with Drum sticks, ahhh…. the smell was just Divine.
The obvious question then would be how does one eat the moringa fruit? Isn’t it.
Well there are 2 ways of eating this fruit ,one is the sophisticated and the other is a rustic way of eating the Drum stick. In the sophisticated way, you take a fork and split open the drum stick, then scrape the soft pulp and seeds with your fork and eat it This pulp is full of soluble and non – soluble fiber, which off course helps reduce cholesterol and Beats constipation.
And then there in the rustic way of eating ,you just take this drumstick( moringa fruit) split it open with your fingers, scrape the pulp and the seeds with your teeth and then chew the skin kind of like you would chew on the gum, suck out the healthy juice and throw out the cud, There is a certain benefit in eating it in a rustic way and that is, when you chew on the skin of the moringa fruit you are actually exercising your jaws, you are exercising your teeth.You see our modern food is too mushy, too soft ,so our teeth and jaws do not get enough exercise, thus most of us get temporomandibular or TM joint pain, or we land up having bad teeth, thus this rustic way of eating is a great way of exercising our teeth and jaws, aswellas enjoying the yummy juice .
Not just the fruit and leaves but even the skin or the bark of the Drum stick, has lots of micro nutrients, when we chew on it, it release these micro nutrients into our body.
But in our craze to eat the highly advertised moringa leaves what we are forgetting is it is not just the Moringa leaves which are the super food, it is the whole Moringa tree, which is a super tree, the roots are healthy, the leaves are healthy, the bark is healthy, the fruits are healthy and dried seeds are healthy too In fact even the flowers are healthy too, when I was a child my mom made yummy, yummy, dry curry from the flowers.The taste still lingers on my tongue.
In our craze, to eat more of this super food, we make capsules from the leaves, these capsules we can go on ingesting and dig a big whole in our pocket, but we have just got it out of context, we really don’t know how much of the artificially made capsule we are going to absorb.
Instead how about growing our own Moringa plant,in case we are living in the tropical zone, Moringa grows naturally
It is an evergreen, doesn’t need a lot of care, it can grow in arid and semi-arid grounds, it doesn’t need a lot of water, in fact it hates water logging.you see moringa was an essential part of backyard gardens, in India and south east Asia, and it was usually planted at the corner of the garden on the outer ring, can you Guess why? because as much as we love Moringa so do the caterpillars, so if you grow Moringa in your backyard, please learn from the wise ancients, and plant it right at the end of your garden.
Moringa can also grow in pots, big pots, but remember to keep it out in your balcony and enjoy the health benefits of its tender leaves, of its tender fruit, of its solid seeds and even its flower.
That’s precisely why Moringa has been used in the villages of India to combat malnutrition especially anaemia because it gives growing kids a lot of calcium, a lot of iron and a lot of vitamin C. It is also a key player in making the world diabetes free, simply humbly and without much cost.
On that note ,Hoping you take an initiative to grow this Super tree ,consume its leaves ,fruits ,flowers and have a rocking health !
